Work Text:
“Miraculous…the best seamstress! Always best dressed when thing go wrong…”
Marinette sang quietly to herself only to startle when the chipper ringtone on her phone started blaring. She pouted, since she was in the zone on her embroidery and beadwork, but accepted the video call quickly before she could lose her place.
”Bonjour, Dick?” Marinette asked. “How is everything—“
A gigantic, choking gasp was her answer and Marinette frowned before finally looking away from her work.
All three of Damian’s older brothers were staring out at her from the screen in various degrees of concern and anxiety.
“That doesn’t prove anything! It’s not even white!” Jason snapped.
“She’s half Chinese, dummy! The tradition is red there!” Tim snapped back. “Besides, are you completely ignorant to the popularity of the blush dress?!”
“It’s a red dress!” Dick wheezed.
Marinette frowned at them and then glanced back to the ballgown she was making for Damian’s prom in a few weeks. While she told the Waynes she was busy with commissions and studies—which was true, and not even the half of it—she’d also needed time to finish her dress and didn’t want them to know. “Uh…it’s pink?”
“That’s a light red!” Dick cried, voice reaching up to new octaves.
Well. That was a bit of a simplistic way of looking at things. Sure, if you mixed red and white, you got pink…but that didn’t mean that pink was nothing more than a lighter tone of red! It was a wonderful, complex color in its own right and…
“Are you guys okay?” Marinette asked. “Is something wrong—“
“Is that dress yours or a commission?” Tim blurted.
“Well, I had another commission, but this one is mine. Yes. But you weren’t supposed to see it ye—“ Marinette began.
“Quick, what’s Gretna Green for?” Jason demanded of her.
Was this a Jane Austen reference? Their book club didn’t meet until next Thursday, excuse him! She still had time to finish the book by then.
“Isn’t that a historical elopement destination in Scotland?” Marinette answered.
All three of them stared at her with fear on their faces and then Jason swatted at the phone and ended the call.
“Well, that was odd.” Tikki said, still holding the embroidery thread next to Marinette.
Marinette shrugged her shoulders. She could text Damian and ask him about it, but by now he should be resting after his wisdom tooth removal and she didn’t want to wake him if he managed to fall asleep. It was probably nothing, she was sure the boys would have mentioned if something was wrong instead of worrying over it and getting worked up into a tizzy.
Probably.
💍
“Marinette?” Sabine sing-songed to her from down in the kitchen. “Can you please come here?”
Marinette finished the stitching the bead she was on and secured it before she stretched her back and hurried downstairs.
“Yes, Mama…” Marinette trailed off as her eyebrows rose.
Her mother looked rather harried but amused as she held her phone away from her ear. The volume was high enough that Marinette could just about recognize Dick’s panicked voice as he rambled about something on the other end.
“No, dear, I don’t think they would have used assumed names, I don’t think that’s legal.” Sabine said. “Yes, she would make a lovely bride…no I’m sure no one wants to miss having a good cry during the father-daughter dance. Could you hold on for a second, sweetie?”
Sabine pulled the phone from her ear as she calmly looked up at her daughter, frozen halfway down the stairs. “Sweetheart, is there any reason why Damian’s brothers should be concerned you and Damian have eloped?”
Marinette’s jaw dropped. “Not unless I missed the wedding!”
Sabine snorted. “I thought so.”
“Why would they think we eloped?!” Marinette wondered.
“I haven’t actually gotten around to that part of the explanation.” Sabine said, phone still away from her ear, but Dick’s voice still yammering on. “I’m sure it’s interesting, but for now, Jason has been rambling about L.M. Montgomery’s The Blue Castle and the legalities of marrying under assumed names, Tim’s keeping me updated on his quasi-legal search for marriage certificates, and Dick is saying…many things that I can’t keep up with, all revolving about how he doesn’t want to miss the wedding and how sad he’d be if he can’t give Damian away.”
“I thought Tim and Jason would be more eager to give Damian away…” Marinette hummed.
Sabine snorted again. “I’ll tell them we’re not in-laws, yet.”
Marinette bit back a smirk. “Nah, ask them why they didn’t throw me a bridal shower.”
“WHAT?!”
Sabine yanked the phone away from her ear and glared at her daughter as a new storm of hysterics began. “He. Heard. You.”
Marinette giggled. “Bonne chance, Mama!”
And she quickly scampered back up the stairs.
💍
All this was rather hilarious to Marinette and slightly humorous to her mother, but it began to get out of hand once they told Tom about it all.
Tom, of course, bubbled over with inspiration and all things romance and before Marinette could convince him otherwise, Tom had whisked out his “Marinette’s Dream Wedding” scrapbook and insisted they have a cake tasting. The book was over three inches thick and included concept designs and flavor profiles from France, Italy, China, America…basically a world’s fair of all things wedding and sugar. Marinette came to realize that no matter who she married or when or where—unless she married from off world, like Tamaran…no, wait, there was a mustard cake—her Papa was ready to drop everything and give her the desert menu of her dreams.
“But, Papa,” Marinette tried again, “Damian and I are not married, engaged, or even close to that. And he’s not even here to take part in the tasting. And if he WERE here, he still has to be on a soft-food diet until his stitches are healed.”
“That’s alright, we can narrow it down now and share the top contenders with him next time he’s here!” Tom said brightly as he finished a fleur-de-lis on a cake with red bean paste, recipe specially requested from Uncle Wang.
Marinette sighed and accepted defeat.
Papa would calm down in a little while. Probably. And she had to admit, this was a fun bonding experience for them all to plan her fictitious wedding. Not to mention, Cake Papa had overridden the logic of Healthy Papa and so they were having a pastry feast for dinner. There was no arguing against desert dinner, Marinette didn’t even want to try.
Still, she probably should have made more effort to put the brothers out of their misery…but in her defense she had not thought they would go so completely batty and actually think she and Damian had eloped. If she thought that, she might have anticipated Tim arriving at in Paris and letting himself in the Dupain-Cheng apartment—Marinette knew the doors were locked, thank you Tim for ignoring that—and then freezing in horror at the parade of deserts spread out over the counter.
Silence settled over the kitchen.
Tim stared at them with his jaw dropped.
The Dupain-Cheng’s stared back, a forkful of red velvet cake halfway to Sabine’s mouth.
“What is that?” Tim asked quietly.
“A wedding cake tasting!” Tom replied proudly.
Tim practically choked on his gasp.
“Tim, calm down.” Marinette pinched the bridge of her nose. “This is not—“
Tim did not calm down and Tim did not listen. Instead, he did an immediate about face and ran back down the stairs. Not a moment later, they heard his footfalls abruptly halt, then race back up the stairs. Tim reappeared and lunged at the counter, grabbed one of the cake plates, and shouted, “Evidence!” Before promptly running back out the door and down the stairs. A moment later, they heard the street door slam shut.
“How did Tim get here so fast?” Sabine asked.
Good question. Marinette chose not to answer it.
“I might have to get married now just to convince them that Damian and I didn’t elope.” Marinette took another bite of Persian Love Cake.
Tom nodded enthusiastically and nudged a plate toward her. “I recommend the red velvet croquembouche with the gold caramel drizzle, red bean paste filling, and the Persian Love Cake for the groom’s cake.”
Marinette nodded and took another bite of a strawberry cake pop. “And the cake pop bouquets for the cocktail hour.”
“Definitely.” Tom agreed.
Sabine shook her head fondly.
💍
Damian sighed as he turned off his movie. He’d had several hours of blissful peace, but his pain meds had begun to wear off and he didn’t care to ignore the pain like he was trained to in the League. He cared more about taking a nap and texting his Habibti after she finished her patrol.
After a quick text to Alfred—the keeper of all the Wayne’s medical faculties—and he got comfortable under the covers and let himself begin to drift off while he waited for Alfred to bring his next dose.
A polite knock indicated Pennyworth was, as usual, one step ahead of him and already prompt with the pain meds. Damian reluctantly remembered that he had locked his door—not that he doubted Alfred’s ability to pick the lock—and he sighed and carefully got up and unlocked it.
And very much regretted it when Todd, Drake, and Grayson pushed their way past Alfred and rushed him.
“How could you not invite me to your wedding?!”
“It’s not really legal if you used assumed names, Damian! I don’t care what the google search said, something must be wrong! Didn’t the murderers teach you anything?!”
“I’ve got PR on this, hopefully they can hold off the tabloids until we get a statement together—“
“Marinette feels awful we didn’t give her a bridal shower! How could you do this to us?!”
“That cake was awesome, I’m offended we only got left overs!”
“A secondary reception will be expected, we can circle back to the cake.”
“Marinette must have been a beautiful bride!”
“I’m not stopping Tom from beating you up if you deprived him of seeing his only daughter married.”
“And you can’t beat him up! This isn’t the League and most brides frown on that.”
Damian sighed and nodded to Pennyworth as Alfred presented his pain pills on a serving tray with a glass of water. After quickly being the good patient that he was, Damian nodded in his brothers’ direction and Alfred began herding them back out of the room, their nonsense following them.
Alfred was a good man.
Titus slipped through the door just before Damian closed and relocked it, then he made himself at home on Damian’s warm side of the bed. Choosing to be agreeable, Damian covered his dog with the covers and then made himself comfortable on the other side of the bed, scratching Titus’s ears as he began to drift off.
“Idiots, all of them.” Damian mumbled. “As if I would ever elope and deprive you of being Dog of Honor.”
Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good;
for his steadfast love endures forever!
1 Chronicles 16:34
English Standard Version